Losing Weight: What They Won't Tell You On TV

The question most people ask me on YouTube and in person is "What should I eat to be skinny?" It is the main thing on America's mind, or at least the media seems to want it to be. Between images of Americas Biggest Loser glaring at us from our TV's, constant updates about eating disorders, weight gains and losses of all our favorite celebrities, and the surge of "diets" including Dr. Atkins' coronary artery disease, heart attack and death, we're suffocated so much that it makes us want to gorge on Doritos and Ben and Jerry's while we stare at the boob toob in horror at famous people's cellulite!

That is one of the reasons why I unplugged my cable TV for a year to detox. There is no escape from our obsession with weight though. I had zero to contribute to any conversation about reality TV and I had no idea who Brittany was dating for an entire year, but I could tell you all about her weight gain because pasted on every newsstand were those images of her clutching a liter of Mountain Dew and a bag of McDonalds with the grease stain leaking through. I also kept up on Angelina's troubling weight loss because of "exhaustion" and I saw most of the traumatic pictures of Nicole Richie's lollipop head barely balancing atop her tiny skeletal frame.

Recently I leaped back into the game and reunited with the cable company. It was only to watch the Olympics of course, but I couldn't escape the commercials for heart attack pills, new exercise systems, McDonald's new salad choices, and low-calorie hot pockets.

So my thing is yoga. I've been practicing since I was a teenager with a bunch of master teachers, and teaching for a few years myself now because I feel there is a big gap between the people that already practice yoga, and everyone else. I grew up in the Midwest where a lot of people think yoga is an exclusive club for the spiritually elite (or just plain weird). I think Yoga should be for everyone, not just the folks who change their name to something Hindu.

They won't tell you this on TV or in the magazines, because it's not selling much besides a healthy lifestyle (no special meals delivered to your door, no fancy exercise machines). It's the hidden secret to the last diet and health plan you'll ever need. It doesn't come in a bottle and you don't even have to go on a payment plan.

When you practice yoga regularly you get more then you will from jogging on the treadmill catching up on the last season of Lost. When you practice yoga you use your body and your mind, and you're gaining awareness and intuition. Not by thinking really hard "I'm gaining awareness and intuition," but because it just works that way. And when you have more in that department, you make better choices. You'll notice things slightly shifting, from the awareness that you have when you wake up in the morning, to how you walk around and get your work done during the day, to the choices you make for dinner. There's nothing mystical about the new insights you're gaining; it just happens. You'll start to feel happier and healthier, more grounded, stronger, flexible, in your body and in how you feel psychologically. Little moments of clarity start coming more frequently. Sounds are richer, food even tastes better.

Your body is smart. It doesn't want to be filled with crap all the time. It will let you know what it needs and you won't have to follow diets. You'll start to see where you may have been psychologically hungry or craving or tired, when your body may have been just fine and ready to do its job for you. Your awareness and intuition have been with you all along, they just may have needed some dusting off. As long as you are listening to your body's needs, and being clear about your psychological needs, you should be able to figure it out with a little practice.

In the meantime here is my short list.

High-fructose corn syrup: Bad. Don't eat it. Read labels carefully, it's in a lot of products. High-fructose corn syrup is the last thing to leave your body so go ahead and add it as fat. If you are hiking for miles and your body is totally out of fuel it just may start to eat away on its storage of high-fructose corn syrup if you're lucky. Best bet is to stay away. Find products that use natural unprocessed (or at least less processed) sweeteners like cane juice or raw organic sugar.

Greens: Good. Green things are good for your body. Find organic greens and you're all set for your salad. Squeeze a little lemon, add a few walnuts and an avocado and you've got a great meal.

Long ingredient lists: Bad. Read labels in your favorite products. Look for short lists of simple, less-processed ingredients with names you recognize as food. If you find some of the same ingredients in your cereal as your shampoo maybe it's time to switch to something simpler.

Water: Good. It's hard to believe that qater is still underrated. It arrives out of our taps (get a filter if you want), and is free for now . . . although I am anxiously anticipating Irena Salina's new award winning documentary Flow to see how that may change. Drink water. Drink it often. Carry it with you. Drink it all day. Have it by your bed to take care of midnight thirst.

Comments

[Charity]

i pay for my city water. it's part of my electric bill. i also pay for sewer. this is the way it is in most u.s. cities, unless you live in an apt where management pays it (and you still pay for electricity.)

[Furby]

So if you eat healthy and get off the couch you will lose weight! Why hasn't anyone written a book about this? We have the right to know! But when are they going to invent the iTVpod so I can leave the couch without missing my shows? Oh! They Have? Right then. I'm off to revise my list of excuses.

[ThankGodforAtheists]

Could you e-mail me your new list of excuses because I don't have enough time during commercials to redo mine.

[steama]

260 to 170 ---90 POUNDS, 9 MONTHS--- with a little effort and discipline you WILL lose weight, save money, and can forget about dieting. No plans or counting needed...just eat healthy and what you want. There are valid reasons so many people need plans but you may not need a diet plan at all.

1. I needed to learn to eat in relaxing conditions and to eat slowly. Any other way and I risked weight gain. Over time slow eating will drastically reduce portions.

2. What you don't put in your mouth cannot add weight. That being said you should also know that you can eat almost what ever you want in smaller portions. Loving food is good restriction is not and will only cause anxiety and failure.

3. Many people do not ever develop a healthy relationship with hunger. Some people never allow themselves to become hungry. Three square meals do or die will make you fat. Do not eat unless you are HUNGRY if you don't you will not lose wight. Learn to be hungry for a few hours everyday. Also, STOP eating the very second you do not feel hungry.

This is what I do to easily stay thin. It was very easy once I understood how it works. I alter and adjust my eating from time to time but stick to these basics pretty much. Staying thin can be a PIECE OF CAKE. LOL

Peace

[gemcando06]

Another thing to remember: restaurants are not your diet friend. They are in business to sate their customers - give them more food or more caloric food so they come back.
What I do is estimate carb and sugar content and cut the restaurant's serving to diet size. Then I do not take home what's left. The restaurant doesn't even have to know I am watching my food intake.

[RonRico]

I have been practicing yoga since 1974 when my wife introduced it to me. Since then, I delved into its many forms. I am now approaching 60 and can still do many of the things I did when I was 24.

I'm not bragging, I've also had calamities caused by too much drive and determination (e.g. knee surgery caused by overuse) but on the whole, I've kept my weight the same over the years and have made many appropriate choices.

I believe we (humans) are at a turning point in our development that requires us to be more balanced. Yoga can deliver this balance and it's easy to do compared to a cardio workout. To say that it's mindless is an understatement. Yoga guides you to focus on the task at hand, which is living in the present, and in the process clears your brain and mind.

[NoSillyName]

Oh, you get your tap water for free? Wow, lucky you.

I do use a PUR faucet mount filter. I carry filtered water with me in a glass bottle.

[TaraStiles]

I use a Brita Pitcher and fill my SIGG bottle every morning. So it wasn't exactly free, but I got the Pitcher at the National Whole Sale Liquidators for less than half it cost and BB and Beyond nightmare to go into on the weekends. I like to think I rescue items I pick up at NWL from taking up land fill space. I feel a little sorry for the perfectly good items that end up collecting dust there as a result of the surplus of the shinier stores. They just look at me from their dusty shelves peeping, "adopt me"! I love that place! I love that it sits a block up from SOHO where so many of my friends have tumbled into massive debt. If only the liquidators sold unwanted Marc Jacobs sweaters and dresses and shoes I'd be all set! The the SIGG bottle was a gift so that part was free :) I have to research it all a bit more. I'm probably getting BPA or something from refilling the plastic Brita so many times and I'm not quite sure what the "top secret" coating that lines the SIGG bottles. Information I've found on it says that they don't want to say what the liner is for fear of copycats. It's all a bit suspicious. You seem to be on to something with the PUR filter and glass bottle. Isn't that heavy to carry around?

[blondbrain]

I usually only blab, oh I mean blog on politics, but I read your article and I recently started doing yoga( about a month or so now) and I'm hooked. At first the movements went a little fast, but now I've got them down, pretty much(wink)! And regarding NWL, I've been shopping there for years, it's not the most glamorous place but the products and prices are terrific!!! Just felt like sharing :)

OBAMA/BIDEN 2008!!!
(I threw that one in for good measure!)

[NoSillyName]

I didn't read this word for word because I'm too tired tonight, but as for your Four Points.... aren't they self-evident?

"READ LABELS on every grocery item you pick up." should be the #1 item on any healthy eating list.

[gaelfire]

My diet plan is to eat very few things that even HAVE a label. :-}

[Gary47]

If you don't do anything else in life, do this.

[Triangle1]

Read the covers of "women's" magazines at the grocery store. How to lose 20 lbs. Right next to a piece of 4,000 calorie chocolate cake. The bottom line is that Americans are eating a diet based on processed dead food. We should be eating primarily foods that were alive before we just chopped them up, like fruits and vegetables. Bodies need living food to be healthy, to avoid diseases, and to be the proper weight. This isn't a diet, this is how we're designed to be fed. http://mespace.wordpress.com

[jvl315]

Funny, add some lean meats to your 'favorites' and you have the Atkins diet. By the way, he died of a head injury due to slipping and falling on an icy sidewalk.

[Swerinjer]

"Dr. Atkins' coronary artery disease, heart attack and death"

STOP THE ANTI-ATKINS PROPAGANDA. He was a genius. Everything he said and wrote is 100% right.

[Bboyshoes42]

I am so very sure that your kidneys agree with you. In the the mean time, I think I'll stick with salads and biking.

[mercurythe]

Dr. Atkins did not have coronary heart disease or a heart attack. He died an accidental death, slipping on the ice in NYC. Most people think "The Atkins Diet" is the induction phase where you consume very little carbohydrate . . . That is just the first phase that helps to balance most people's glycemic nightmare. All the research since his death has continued to prove his principles. You can over do anything - including protein. I love salads and biking and a few slices of turkey . . . and my kidneys are fine. To each his own. No need to lie like a Republican.

[bouyant]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-04-17-atkins-dies_x.htm

[Alvarask]

I'm glad you wrote that. I was also wondering why the unwarranted attack on the genius of Dr. Atkins!

[msfisk2008]

9/3/08
9:13am
Eugene, OR

But I love my protein bars.

[sonny088]

As a personal trainer, I have found over the last 14 or so years that whatever exercise program you can get excited about and do regularly will work. Obviously yoga works for you, I can't get too psyched about it personally, but its a great way to exercise if you like it and do it regularly. I agree with your short list, and being a minimalist let me see if I can sum up diet...AVOID CONCENTRATED CALORIES..for example a cup of broccoli contains only about 25 calories 5 carbs and a ton of fiber and phytonutrients, as compared to say, rice, which is more concentrated. The more concentrated the calories (ie - cheesecake) the smaller your portions should be. You can fine tune this to meet your individual needs, but its a good general rule that's been a help to my clients and myself.

[TaraStiles]

Hey Sonny,

That's good advice about the concentrated calories and portions. thanks!

I'm all for doing whatever type of exercise suits each person. Personally I love all sorts of physical activities in addition to yoga. I started boxing recently with my friend Joe Dowdell at Peak Performance and as a trade I teach him yoga. I've gotten hooked on boxing and he gets stressed if he doesn't have his weekly yoga. It's hilarious. I'm also a fan of teaching yoga as a physical workout. It should be physically and mentally challenging. I think we have to tire our bodies out with whatever exercise we pick in order to be able to relax and have less stress.

Thanks for the comment and have an awesome week :)

[wm1066]

Watch out for the boxing, it can become the "default mode" if you get angry, and before you know it youv'e just slugged someone. It happened to a friend of mine. His wife was winning trophes in kick boxing and he got creamed by her in an argument.

[sonny088]

Thank you so much Tara, sounds like you both have a good thing going. Keep up the good work and all the best to you!

[rini]

Yeah, I need concentrated calories when I run alot, otherwise, not so much. The biggest fallacy out there is that it's fat or protein or carbs etc...

It's calories. A healthy lifestyle avoids a super high calorie diet, unless you are extremely active. Vegetables and fruit are healthy because they have a lot of water and fiber that fill you up, yet are not highly caloric. It's not going to be a magic extract or vitamin. It's going to be eating the kinds of foods that fill you up, but are light.... and staying active.

[sonny088]

I couldn't have said it better; best of luck to you.

[Rivercs]

I definitely need some help from an experienced professional here. The one type of exercise that I actually enjoy is swimming, and I am no longer able to do that. I am on peritoneal dialysis and have a catheter coming out of my abdomen; the reason I'm not allowed to swim is because of concern about infection at the exit site from bacteria in the water. I would be allowed to swim in the ocean, but the ocean where I live is much MUCH too cold to swim in (I'm near Seattle). The only way to go into salt water around here is wearing a wetsuit.

So what do I do? I need to exercise, but land-based exercise of any kind has never appealed to me. I make myself walk, but it's drudgery. I need something I can enjoy.

[mjt96]

Yes! Cool :)

[rini]

Hmm,

I love yoga and the awareness it's given me about my body. I also run (to intensely to listen to music or watch tv). I don't run too many miles a week, though, since I also jump rope and am trying to learn ballet. (I'll never get any good, since i started at 39 1/2 years of age, but it gives a different body sense and grace than yoga.)

Still, I should eat better.

I wish yoga made me eat better. Maybe if I found good yoga classes or seminars. The good centers are too far away for me to go to regularly.